


Enemy Action

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2015 [19]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall, Angst, Claudia Stilinski Warning, Community: wishlist_fic, Creeper Peter, Dark, Dubious Morality, Is there such a thing as pre-murder boyfriends?, M/M, Murder, Not Beta Read, Prompt Fic, Season 2, Season 3, Underage - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:50:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is far too many bodies on the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enemy Action

**Author's Note:**

> For the ever lovely _Reena Jenkins_ , who asked for Peter/Stiles, _once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action._ I wanted to write fluffy murder boyfriends, but ended up slathering on the angst sauce and rolling around in Stiles' moral agony. 
> 
> ... The metaphor totally got away from me. I hope you like it anyway.

+

To be fair, the first time _is_ just chance. Pure bad luck, typical Beacon Hills style. Meaning: as bloody as can be. 

They’ve just about shaken off Gerard and his brand of crazy, Stiles’ bruises are almost gone, Erica and Boyd are still missing and everything is shit. So, of course, a power-crazy omega drops in, intent on murdering Derek and taking over. 

Which, on top of everything else, is a problem.

It ends with Derek, Scott and Isaac going out to hunt the omega down, while Stiles stays at Derek’s swanky new digs (compared to the train depot, Jesus Christ) to research who the omega was before he went coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Because Stiles is most definitely the brains of this outfit and it’s important to know a man’s name before killing him.

Ahem. Sending him away. Scott insists on _sending him away_. 

It has nothing to do with how no-one trusts Stiles not to get himself dead, or worse, them. Or with how they think he’s useless. So here he is, pacified with research no-one needs.

Awesome.

Even more awesome: Peter Hale, back from the dead, blue-eyed and snarky, apparently weaker than your average wolf, all of a sudden, and still shady as fuck. The asshole grew a beard in the grave. There’s definitely something wrong with him.

The problem inherent in Peter’s creepiness is not that it’s creepy. Stiles’ creepy-scale has been blown out months ago. No, it’s that Stiles likes it. He likes Peter. He has always liked Peter, even while he was setting him on fire. 

What’s not to like. The man is loyal as hell, determined, goal-oriented and insanely clever. And he _likes_ Stiles, without bribery or obligations being involved. The only problem Stiles had with Peter was that he was messing with Scott and Scott is a precious puppy who must not be harmed. 

So it’s Stiles. At the loft. With Peter. 

Who is babysitting him, which is offensive on _so many levels_ , but also, the banter is pure gold. 

“If you don’t stop pacing, I will break your legs,” Peter threatens as Stiles crosses in front of the window for the twenty-ninth time. 

“And ruin this level of awesome?”

“Hardly.”

“I could set you on fire again. We haven’t done that in a while.”

“For a teenager, you are exceedingly cruel, Stiles.”

“Pft. Teenagers are cruel by definition. You should have seen how Lydia used to treat me.” He presses a hand above his heart. “The pain.”

“I could show you pain,” comes the helpful offer. Peter is smirking. Stiles might be, too.

“Eugh, dude, pedo much?”

“A masochist. I should have guessed.”

“Says the most predictably sadistic person _on the planet_.” It’s fun because there’s no-one to judge Stiles for what comes out of his mouth, for once. 

And then there’s no more time for snark, because the door slams open and there’s the nutty omega, launching himself at them and everything is panic. He roars and snarls and tries to take out Stiles’ throat. Stiles ducks barely in time, rolls sideways until he’s up against a concrete pillar, then scrabbles to get back on his feet.

The damn omega probably followed the scent of alpha here. While alpha is all the way across town, being useless. What else is new?

“Why is this my life?” Stiles manages to bemoan, just in time to draw the omega’s attention away from where he’s trying to have a look at Peter’s insides. He turns to face him and the other wolf uses the chance to gouge at the deranged face, taking out an eye before he gets kicked off and then Stiles is up again. 

He tries to grab for a weapon, only comes up with a stack of handwritten notes and throws them. The fluttering paper buys him half a second to look around and then Peter’s there again, executing a textbook tackle and taking the omega down and, more importantly, away from Stiles.

They roll across the floor, snapping, biting, clawing, and Stiles finally finds a weapon, grabs the ugly as hell lamp Derek keeps by the ratty sofa and hefts it. He’s never been this grateful for the alpha’s penchant for industrial design, because, wow. Heavy. Good heft. Nice grip. 

On second thought, Derek might have actually bought that lamp with murder in mind. 

Their lives. Seriously.

Peter goes down under the mass of rage, takes claws across his belly and chest and Stiles swings and pretends the omega’s head is a baseball. Bam. 

Or rather, crunch. 

There’s blood and hair and… less liquid stuff flying all over, a very human scream of pain and then the guy slumps forward over Peter’s prone form and it’s done. 

Stiles stands there, lamp in hand, thinking, _homerun_. 

He just killed someone, didn’t he? Huh. 

Peter rolls the corpse off himself and gets to his feet, hisses as his injuries strain and then turns electric blue eyes on the token human. “Are you hurt?”

Stiles shakes himself. “Nah,” he offers with a headshake, changing his grip on the lamp. He likes the feel of it. Peter’s too close suddenly, peering into his face from half an inch away. He brings up both hands, still faintly tipped in claws, and cups Stiles’ cheeks. 

Then he smiles. 

A second later, he plucks the lamp from nerveless fingers, wipes the unbloodied part on his shirt and then gets his grubby hands all over it. As an afterthought, he shoves Stiles in the chest hard enough to send him sprawling just as the doorway fills with a bunch of puppies.

The werewolf sneers, “Timely arrival, as always. Don’t worry, I took care of your problem for you.”

And then he drops the lamp right next to the body, snarls at Scott, who looks like he wants to protest, and shoves past them all, out the door. 

Stiles is left sitting in a daze.

+

Hours later, with dawn almost creeping over the horizon again, Stiles wakes to the feeling of being watched. 

There is an undead werewolf sitting at the foot on his bed.

“Jesus fucking Christ! What the hell, Peter?!” He screams, flails and almost falls out of bed, tangled up in his comforter as he is. “Why the hell do werewolves think the fact that this room has a window is an open invitation?”

“It was open,” Peter offers, mildly. 

Stiles glares, pulling his blanket to his chest like a blushing maiden. Then he notices what he’s doing and angrily bunches it into his lap. “It was not.”

He hasn’t left his window unlatched since Gerard. He also locks the front door twice and his bedroom door once. Keeps a knife in his pocket and pepper spray at hand. Once or twice, he dragged a chair into his bathroom and barred the door before taking a shower. 

The window was definitely not open.

Peter tilts his head slightly, conceding.

But not moving to leave. Stiles sighs. “What do you want?”

The wolf smiles then and Stiles cannot fathom how anyone could ever mistake that for a human expression. All his primal instincts are screaming danger, screaming for him to _runrunrun_ get away from the predator. Of course, Stiles being Stiles, that only makes him curious. 

“I didn’t expect you to be sleeping,” the creeperwolf finally starts. Because, obviously, getting to the point right away would be too easy. Stiles murdered someone tonight and Peter covered it up for some reason and now he’s breaking into Stiles’ bedroom to have vague conversation at, oh god, three am. 

“Stiles groans. So you’re here because… my sleep rhythm confuses you?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I’m here, Stiles,” he lectures, “because you saved my life tonight by killing a man and I foolishly assumed that might rob you of your sleep.”

“And you’re so worried about you that you wanted to sooth my troubled soul,” Stiles fires right back and hopes that’ll distract the man. 

It doesn’t work. 

“I did take the fall for that. It implies some level of care, one would think.” If one allowed themselves to think along those lines, then yes. But Stiles has a PhD in Denial, thank you very much, and he is absolutely Not Thinking about what the psychotic former dead person took the blame for Stile’s self-defense murder. When Stiles doesn’t react to that beyond a little squeaky sound, Peter takes pity and moves on. “Most people wouldn’t be able to sleep after casually murdering someone.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Stiles.” Warningly. Apparently, all available slack has been cut.

“What?”

“Why aren’t you out of sorts? You’re one of the good guys, remember? You should be sobbing into someone’s shoulder at the moment. Murder is a bad thing.” He says the last like explaining to a child and Stiles rolls his eyes so hard.

“I murdered you.” Which is honestly not a sentence he ever expected to say.

Peter knows neither mercy nor distraction, though. “You helped incapacitate me long enough for Derek to kill me. Tonight, you bashed a man’s head in. There is a slight difference.” 

Tonight was self-defense, pure and simple. Heat of the moment, you or me. Stiles didn’t even think.

He just… hit a homerun. Bam. 

In his lap, his fingers twitch with the remembered weight of that lamp. Wonder if Derek’s going to keep it?

Stiles’ mom, laid out in a hospital bed, alternately begging him to help her and snarling for him to get the hell away from her, monster, now that was real murder. 

Premeditated.

Clean. Hard. Cold. 

Stiles was only seven. 

After that, everything else seems easy. 

“So my moral compass is screwy. God knows, if it weren’t, we’d all be dead by now,” he bites out, wanting this over with but knowing Peter won’t leave empty-handed. Bastard. Truth, though: Stiles keeps suggesting violence as a solution and the others still don’t realize that he’s not kidding. 

Peter shakes his head. “The longer I know you, the more I wish I’d simply bitten you, that night.”

Maybe it’s how tired Stiles is, or the fact that he can still feel Gerard’s boots against his ribs most nights, but he simply shrugs and, looking the deranged spree killer straight in the eye, says, “I killed a man tonight and then went to sleep like a baby. Do you really want to know what I’d be like as a werewolf?”

Something in the older man’s expression says yes, he very much would like to know. But all he speaks out loud is, “Goodnight, Stiles. Thank you for saving my life tonight.”

And then he’s gone. 

Fantastic. Was there a fucking point to this, except keeping everyone from their well-deserved rest?

Stiles rolls over, sorts out his blankets and goes back to sleep.

+

The second time happens a few months later. In the middle of the Alpha Pack mess, hunters come rolling in because, of course, of course, this is Stiles’ life and nothing every goes right. 

So of course on top of rampaging werewolves, a darach, and bodies dropping like flies, they now have hunters. 

The nasty kind. 

Somehow that means the pack sneaks around the preserve to try and corner them so they can _negotiate_ , with Chris facilitating, while Stiles and Peter are left behind _again_. Chris despises Peter and no-one wants to antagonize the one hunter on their side, so Peter’s in the naughty corner. 

Stiles, of course, is in the you’re-human-you’ll-get-hurt corner. Lydia got put there, too, but she just rolled her eyes, flipped her hair and went off to screw the more evil alpha twin. Smart girl. 

Because the whole corner thing doesn’t go so well. Halfway through a truly impressive rant on speciest werewolves, Stiles stumbles upon a connection he somehow missed before. 

What? He can multitask! 

The connection, of course, being to Gerard, which means there’s a really shitty chance of those hunters going peacefully and then _of course_ there’s no-one answering their phones and Stile hates everything because that means he and Peter end up traipsing through the wood, alone, after midnight, looking for the pack to tell them that the hunters are there to kill them all.

Good times. 

They never even make it to the coordinates of the meeting point. 

No, things go to shit a full two miles before that, when a lone hunter bursts out of the underbrush far away from where he should be, armed to the teeth and _behind_ the pack’s position. 

If it walks like an ambush and talks like an ambush, it’s probably trying to kill you.

Peter makes the man first and pushes Stiles out of the way of a bullet whizzing past, just in time. Stiles goes ass over teakettle and for a moment, he has no idea which way is up, but then there’s the scuffling and grunting of people fighting while trying to remain quiet and when he finally gets his feet back under him, Peter’s trying to claw the guy’s face off while the hunter cradles on wrist to his chest and has a gun aimed at him with the other. 

From the way Peter is suddenly holding very still, Stiles guesses those bullets are wolfbane. If they weren’t, the wolf would absolutely accept a bullet in the chest to rip the hunter’s throat out.

And, wow, that sentence should not sound as matter of fact as it does, even in Stiles’ own head. Because Peter ripping throats out is a bad, bad thing and Stiles should not think along the lines of, do it already, this sucks, I have mud in my boxers and Scott is about to die.

They’re focused on each other, both their faces contorted by naked hate. Not that most people would be able to read Peter’s wolfy face all that well, but Stiles can just _tell_. And he gets it. He does. Peter still has ten dead family members to avenge on the world and anyone allied with Gerard is fair game. 

And the hunter doesn’t need to know Peter to hate him, simply for the way his eyes glow and his teeth lengthen. He stares the werewolf down with a mindless loathing so strong, it sends shivers down Stiles’ spine. And Scott and Derek want to negotiate with these people?

Still, in their stupidly emotional focus on each other, they miss Stiles getting his feet under him in a crouch and he’s not all that good at sports, but he knows how to tackle a man hard enough to send him flying and he does it, pushes, turns his shoulder into it and slams into the guy right below his extended arm, jerking the gun off target before he even fully impacts. 

The hunter tries to compensate, but Stiles hit him like a freight train and he goes stumbling, falling, screaming and Stiles wasn’t aware that they’re right at the edge of the ravine, didn’t see it in the dark, probably would have gone over it in a minute if the hunter hadn’t stopped them, Jesus fuck, he didn’t _know_.

He didn’t know. Swear to god. 

The hunter screams only for a few seconds before something vital breaks against the rocks and the rest of his body’s descent sounds like someone slapping raw meat against concrete. 

Peter stares, wide-eyed, at Stiles, who’s flat on the ground, panting his way into a panic attack. 

“I didn’t know,” he manages after a moment. “I didn’t know the edge was right there. I didn’t – “

There’s a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “He would have killed me first and then you,” Peter offers and Stiles breathes, breathes, breathes. 

Says, “I know.”

He does. He saw it, saw the way the hunter looks, saw his expression pinched with prejudice and hate. He saw. He knew. That man was going to kill them both. And Stiles knows he wouldn’t have stopped. 

He’s just shocked. Surprised. He honestly didn’t know the ravine was there. 

Far away, the pack howls, but it’s not in alarm, not in pain. It’s victory. They beat the ambush and they didn’t need Stiles and Peter to do it. 

There was no reason for them to be out here, after all. No reason for them to run into the hunter. No reason – 

“I know,” he repeats and stands, brushing himself off. His hands aren’t shaking, but he wishes they were. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

+

He should tell someone. Hey, by the way, there’s a dead hunter in the ravine, whoops. 

He doesn’t. Instead he lets himself be driven home by Peter, takes Scott’s call when it comes, listens to his friend’s excited blabber about how they ran the hunter off, a few broken bones, they’ll never be back. 

Peter grimaces in the driver’s seat, a sneer on his face and Stiles sighs, rubs at his face because Scott really believes that. Believes that there’s such a thing as winning while their enemies are still alive. Believes in mercy and the good in people and one day, it’s going to get him killed.

And other night, this is where Stiles might start spewing prophecies no-one ever listens to (Kate, Matt, Gerard, how many more?), but he’s too tired. Hangs up with a brief goodbye. 

He’s read the term ‘senseless violence’ a thousand times in his life. In police reports filched from the station, in newspapers, in books. He never really thought about it, never considered the words. 

But. 

There’s a man dead in the ravine and an omega buried in a shallow grave and all violence is senseless. All of this. Animals fighting for survival, but in the great scheme of things, what does it matter if Peter survived tonight, or if the hunter did. The universe doesn’t care which one came out on top. 

There’s no point to it, to the man’s death, the omega’s. To Boyd’s and Erica’s and Gerard’s, to Matt’s and Kate’s, to Harris’ and Heather’s and all the other, to Talia Hale and her entire pack, to Ennis’ betas, Paige and all the rest. There was no point in Stiles’ mother’s death, no purpose, no sense. 

They all just keep killing each other off and what’s gonna be left in the end? What’s any of it going to be worth?

Stiles knows that there’s something wrong with him, that wires got crossed, somewhere inside of him, the day he helped Mom finish… the day he helped her. Or maybe before that, the first time she called him monster and meant it. The first time she was afraid that he was going to kill her, six years old and so scared. 

He knows that he should be wracked by guilt, be crippled by it. That he should be sickened, disgusted with himself. He just took a life. Again. He wiped out that man’s entire future, all of it, wiped out all his possibilities, all his maybes. He murdered someone’s son, or spouse, or brother, or friend. 

But all he feels is tired and wiped out. Burnt out. 

This is his life. He’s seventeen, sitting in a car next to a man he murdered once, driving away from a corpse in the woods. The taste of blood at the back of his throat is as familiar as his hands, by now and this is never going to end, is it?

Not until he’s dead, or everyone else is. 

Senseless violence. He gets it now.

He must say that last bit out loud, because Peter chuckles quietly, goes, “You’re alive. It’s that reason enough?”

They’re two streets from Stiles’ place and he just answers, “Let me get off here, it’s fine. I can walk the rest of the way.” He stares out the window with more focus than required.

Peter clucks his tongue, but pulls over. 

Stiles opens the door, gets out, closes it softly behind himself. His hands still aren’t shaking.

+

He lines his window with wolfsbane that night.

+

The third time happens too fast for Stiles to even register. 

The nogitsune has been gone for a month, he still can’t sleep, Allison is dead (senseless), Aiden is dead (senseless) and Stiles feels like someone scooped out his insides like ice-cream and left them to melt on the ground. 

There’s a witch sacrificing people (senseless), drawn by the nemeton Stiles helped wake, and she keeps using telekinesis to fling shit at Scott and Malia, who are trying to pin her down. Kira’s out cold in the corner, Lydia can’t stop screaming, Derek is trying to sneak up from behind and Peter’s flat on his back at the witch’s feet, his chest a bloody mess where she tried to rip his heart out.

And Stiles. 

Stiles is human, is useless, is not a threat, Stiles is bleeding from a wound on his temple and Stiles has a switchknife in his pocket, Stiles uses Scott’s roar and Malia’s furious attack to sneak in under the wire.

Stiles buries his three inch blade in the witch’s throat and watches her eyes go wide, feels her blood on his hands and soaking into his sleeves, running warm against his chest. She falls and he keeps a hold on the knife, ripping the remainder of her throat out. 

Malia grumbles something along the lines of ‘finally’, perfect in her utter lack of human morals, more comfortable these days than the people Stiles has known all his life. 

Scott on the other hand, Scott looks scared. “Stiles?” he asks, and his voice is wobbly and afraid and oh. He thinks this is the nogitsune. He thinks Stiles isn’t Stiles anymore because Stiles cannot possibly do what Stiles just did, only Stiles can. He keeps doing it and his hands keep not shaking. His nightmares are about the way the nogitsune took his choice and his body, not about the way it used both to murder innocents. 

Something in Stiles is broken.

“Well,” Peter drawls and he looks smugly happy, looks satisfied and Stiles realizes that every time he’s killed in the past year, it’s been to save Peter.

Once was chance, twice was happenstance, but three times? Three times is enemy action and the way Peter is _looking_ at him – 

Scott chokes a little, confused. Lydia and Kira cling to each other, staring. Derek looks hurt. 

Stiles flees. 

+

“Did you orchestrate this?” Stiles asks, standing in Peter’s living room at three am, a sleep-tousled werewolf, fangs and claws on display, standing across from him, ready to take down an attacked who turned out to be a teenage boy.

“What?”

“Did you orchestrate all those… the fights?”

To his credit, Peter doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Did I somehow maneuver you into killing three people in the past six months?”

Stiles swallows. “Yes.”

Because he killed his mom and hopes no-one will never know and he killed Peter and now he’s killed three people to _save_ Peter and that – 

Peter de-wolfs and runs a hand through his hair. He’s cranky and tired but he takes Stiles seriously. He considers. He answers. Peter always answers Stiles. “As much as I appreciate how highly you must thing of my skills at manipulation, I did not, in fact, engineer three completely separate occasions, during which I almost died, just for you to kill someone. If I had actually managed to engineer the opportunities, I rather think I would have used them to set myself up at the hero, instead of you, don’t you think?”

Because it does always end up like this: Peter almost dying and Stiles saving him. 

“What would I get out of playing the damsel to your hero, Stiles? No, I’m afraid you won’t be able to use me as a scapegoat for your moral dilemma.”

Damn him. Stiles should have let him burn. 

Oh, wait. 

He did. 

“Maybe it turns you on, or something,” he grumbles, fronting petulance where he’s really just exhausted. Scott won’t look him in the eye anymore. Again. 

When there’s no snappy comeback within five seconds, his head jerks up, surprised. Peter is – Peter is standing in the middle of the room, still, wearing sleep pants and nothing else, staring at Stiles like he’s breakfast and Stiles thinks _oh_. 

“Seriously?” he blurts. “ _Seriously_?! Watching me murder people turns you on? Is that – do you have any idea how… how _fucked up_ you are?!”

Instead of reacting with shame or aggression, Peter shrugs fluidly. “You keep killing people in defense of a man you proclaim to hate, Stiles. I think I’m not the only fucked up person in the room.”

“Only because they’d come for me next!”

Peter’s smirk says he doesn’t buy that for a second. And yeah, okay. It’s weird that Stiles hasn’t considered letting the evil of the week finish Peter off even once. After all, Peter deserves it. He’s the reason Stiles’ life is a tailspin of loss, murder and violence. If he hadn’t bitten Scott, hadn’t drawn Laura and Derek back here – 

The thought hasn’t even crossed his mind. 

The werewolf takes pity on him, offering, “You protect me, Stiles. The wolf in me can’t help but find that extremely attractive.”

“I murder people!”

Peter rolls his eyes so hard his whole head moves with it. “Do us both a favor and stop pretending you care about that, will you?”

“I care!”

He does. Or at least he cares about not caring and about the fact that his life is exceptionally shitty and violent and senseless. He thinks he’d be okay if it all served a purpose, but it doesn’t. 

It’s just one fight after the next. 

“You care about your people and your territory. Not about the ones who threaten either.”

Stiles meets his gaze, then looks away. How the hell does Peter know that? How does he – damn him. 

“Fuck you.”

“Is that an invitation?” Suddenly, there is a werewolf in Stiles’ space, his hands landing on the boy’s shoulders, squeezing. 

“What? No! Peter!”

“Stiles,” Peter mocks and when Stiles keeps trying to twist away from his grip, he shakes him until he stops. “Stiles. I didn’t orchestrate these events, but the fact that you think I did, well.” He sighs. How old is Peter anyway? He looks a hundred, just then, and Stiles is abruptly reminded of an entire row of graves a short walk from his mother’s, all of them sharing the same last name. Peter loved all of them, once and now this is all he has. Just this. Senseless. 

“This town has been at war all my life. Against hunters, other packs, other monsters. Sometimes against itself. Everyone I’ve ever loved is dead because of this damned town. But you, you are going to be the last one standing. Because you don’t flinch and you don’t hesitate and do I find that attractive?” A shadow of a smirk, too honest to be bright. “Of course I do.”

Stiles grimaces.

The older man keeps steamrolling on. “You’re paranoid, constantly prepared and absolutely vicious and these past few months, you’ve been utilizing all that to protect _me_. Imagine what we could do together, Stiles.”

Oh. 

Oh.

“This is about power, again.”

Peter smirks and it’s not pretty, for once. “Power means survival, Stiles. And I intend to survive.”

“I can’t tell if you proposing an alliance or propositioning me.”

“Does it have to be one or the other?”

Christ, but Stiles hates the smug monster. Hates him, hates him, hates him, and understands him far too well. “Things would be so much easier if you’d just stayed dead.”

“You would have missed me.”

And damn him for being right. Stiles closes his eyes, tired again. Still. It’s not like he can tell the difference anymore. “You’re taking advantage of my vulnerable state and it’s despicable,” he offers, head leaning against Peter’s bare shoulder, breathing against an unfairly attractive collarbone. 

In response, the wolf tightens his grip, hauls Stiles in closer and buries his face in the nook where collar turns to bare skin. He hums and Stiles can feel it all the way down his spine. 

“I hate you.”

Another hum. 

Stiles slumps into the embrace and closes his eyes. Enemy action. Got to be. He just doesn’t have a clue anymore who the enemy is, here. 

Everyone in this room has been the monster, at one time or another.

And now - 

+


End file.
